Black Bear offers EnviroFest

MILFORD, PA — As part of its sixth season, The Black Bear Film Festival is offering “EnviroFest,” featuring five environmental films shown for free on October 16, and a new documentary, “The Greatest Good,” for the regular ticket price of $8 in advance, $10 at the door. “The Greatest Good,” which brings to life the history of the U.S. Forest Service, will be shown at 3:00 p.m. in the Milford Theatre. A panel discussion with the film producers will immediately follow.

“The Greatest Good” uses rarely seen footage and photos, sweeping landscape aerial shots and dozens of interviews to tell a complex and compelling story of the American land. Milford’s Grey Towers National Historic Site, ancestral home of Gifford Pinchot, founder and first chief of the Forest Service, figures prominently in the film.

The documentary, which features an original score and is narrated by Charles Osgood, was created in part to help commemorate the Forest Service’s Centennial anniversary. In creating the agency in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt and his Chief Forester Pinchot sought not only to conserve disappearing natural resources but also to maximize the social benefits from those resources.

Pinchot’s mission statement for his new agency stated “…where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question shall always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”

Only the first hour of the two-hour documentary will be shown during festival, to focus on the earliest history while allowing time for a question-and-answer session with filmmakers David Steinke and Steven Dunsky.

For more information call 570/409-0909.